The Past is a Foreign Land

I stayed up all night and as the dawn broke I was out and about with Lilly the Collie checking out some badgers.

I had not planned to stay up all night. With the polls indicating a narrow win for Remain, I thought I would give it a few hours and once the result was clear I would go to bed.

Then there was the result from Newcastle and the bombshell from Sunderland. But it was okay.

There was Scotland.

Scotland would go Remain. They did but their turnout was too low. It was not enough.

But there was always London. Londoners would save the day. But it had rained in the afternoon and so the turnout was marginally down. It was not enough.

Even the big cities were too close, and the game was up when Birmingham declared marginally for leave.

It was enough for Leave.

It was a strange night, a surreal night, hard to believe that it was happening at times.

Before the result from Newcastle and Sunderland, when the Polls suggested a Remain win, one could read the bitterness on the Facebook timeline, the hatred that simmered just below the surface.

After Sunderland, they dared to believe,and the hatred and bitterness was replaced with smiles, that were relaxed only to drink from the pint glasses clutched in their fists.

As I strolled back from the badgers, a farmer or representative of the NFU lamented that the result was too late to stop the ban on Glyphosate that was due to be debated by the EU. Already they were plotting to undermine the environmental safeguards that EU membership gave us.

The sun rose over Fairfield Low, as it had done for thousands of years, as it will do for thousands more. But today we are told it is a new dawn, a great day, our Independence Day. But from what?

“The past is a foreign land. They do things differently there.” Already I mourned for the past.